


Falling Apart, Falling Together

by Skyler10



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Autumn, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fatherhood, Kid Fic, Motherhood, Romance, parenting, pmdd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-01
Updated: 2017-10-01
Packaged: 2019-01-07 22:03:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12241491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skyler10/pseuds/Skyler10
Summary: Rose is very grateful Tentoo is home after a long day with the kids.





	Falling Apart, Falling Together

**Author's Note:**

> I have been wanting to write some kid!fic for a while with both Piper and her brother, Braxton. More on him to come! But in the meantime, this is for the @doctorroseprompts drabble prompt: quiet and general fall fic (leaves, baking, kids being crazy on busy Sunday nights before school the next day, etc.) Also, as I like to do with my own afflictions, I have given Rose PMDD in this fic because something this fluffy and idyllic needs some real talk, yeah? If you don’t know what it is, it’s the emotional side of PMS but enough to be a Thing. It’s fun, trust me. J (It’s not much fun, but yay #awareness)

“Oh thank god, you’re home,” Rose rushed up to greet the Doctor in the entryway to their house just as he shut the door behind him. It had been a busy Sunday with their three-year-old son and eight-year-old daughter, and just as it was getting started, the Doctor had been called in to work.

Rose was so relieved to see him that she pulled him down for a spontaneous, hard kiss.

“Not that I’m complaining,” the Doctor said as she pulled away, “but what’s going on?”

“Your son. won’t. nap,” Rose bit out through a forced smile. “He wants to show you his dinosaurs, even though he knows you have seen them a million times. He still won’t go to sleep until you look at them. He’s been like this for an hour, and I _have_ to get these pumpkin cookies baking for Piper’s class tomorrow. You know how I know?! Because she keeps reminding me every five minutes that she’s going to be the only one without treats for the autumn class party!” The last part was in a frustrated whisper because Piper was only around the corner in the kitchen.

“C’mere…” The Doctor pulled her in for a reassuring hug, which she returned tightly. “It’s gonna be alright. I’m here.”

 She let go of him eventually and smiled sheepishly, embarrassed at herself.

“Thanks. Just… I really missed you today. Not only because of the kids.” She exhaled heavily and shook her head at her silliness. He was only gone eight hours, after all. They’d been apart much longer than that, even since starting their new life together in this universe. Then she remembered what week of the month it was. “I don’t know, probably just PMS-ing or whatever.”

He wrapped his arms around her waist and pecked a kiss to her forehead. “The Time Lord in me says you’re right about your cycle, but I know it still freaks you out that I know that, so instead I’m going to say, honestly, I missed you too.”

“DADDY! Come see my dinosaurs!” came a tiny shout from upstairs.

Piper stuck her head out into the hallway. “You’re supposed to be sleeping!”

“I WILL VERY SOON,” came Braxton’s reply.  

Rose and the Doctor couldn’t help but laugh wearily.

“Divide and conquer?” he suggested.

Rose nodded. “Come sample our test batch when you’re done?”

“Oh yes!” He beamed and bounded upstairs to their son’s bedroom.

\-----

“This one is a ticeracops and this one is a tewannasaurus rex.” Braxton held up each of his plushie toys for his dad to see. The three-year-old was tucked into bed with the Doctor sitting next to him. A pile of books from Rose’s attempts to get him to nap were scattered on the floor around them.

“That’s very good! Did you learn that in school?”

“No, Mummy taught me. She said they are much scarier in person. But these are nice ones and they will protext me from the baddies.” He squished them into a hug, then yawned. “Daddy, can I be a dinosaur for Halloween?

“Sure, son. That sounds like a great costume.” The Doctor made a mental note to look for dinosaur costumes in Braxton’s size the next time they were out shopping.

“Can we go in the TARDIS to see the dinosaurs? The REAL ones?”

The Doctor smiled and stroked the boy’s sticky-uppy brown hair so like his own. He softened his voice to the magical tone that always helped his kids relax. “Yes, when you’re older. Right now, I want you to close your eyes and think about all the good dinosaurs playing and having fun together.”

Braxton snuggled down into bed and, with a tad bit of help from his father’s telepathic touch, he was out like a light. The Doctor tried not to use that method much, but he knew if Braxton didn’t get his nap soon, he’d be cranky and not want to go to sleep later tonight.  

\---

Down in the kitchen, he found pumpkin cookies on the cooling rack, but Rose and Piper were nowhere in sight.

“Rose?”

“Shh, over here.” He followed the whisper to the living area with a big comfy couch. Rose and Piper were cuddled up with a blanket. A movie about teenage witches was playing, muted, on the telly.

“Hey,” he whispered as he knelt down in front of the couch. “Got Brax down but not without a promise we’d visit the late Cretaceous period. I see you’ve been successful as well.”

Rose smiled down at their daughter. “Sometimes big kids need a nap too.”  She yawned. “Must be catching.”

“You should get some rest as well.” He shook his head when she started to protest. “I’ll get the second batch of cookies out of the oven when they’re done.”

“Mmk,” Rose agreed, almost asleep already. “Don’t let them burn.”

“Not to worry. I’m good with time.” He winked.

Rose smiled and let her eyes fall closed.

\---

Fifteen minutes later, Rose awoke as a new woman. She double-checked the time to make sure she hadn’t actually slept longer. Piper was still out cold, so she carefully unwrapped herself from her daughter’s embrace. Piper stirred, but Rose tucked the blanket in around her and she settled back down.

The Doctor was still in the kitchen. He’d found the ingredients she’d set aside for dinner and was starting to cook.

“Hello, beautiful,” he crooned in faux suggestive tone at the sight of her nap-mussed hair. She giggled as he patted down a section that was sticking out funny. “Have a good nap?”

“Yes, ta.” She pecked a kiss to his lips and turned to admire the cookies cooling on the rack. She turned back to him and gasped.

“What?” He straightened, ready to spring into action. He searched the cookies for anything wrong.

“No, these look great.” She breathed out a laugh. “I just realized I didn’t even ask about your day or anything! I’m so sorry, love.”

He relaxed and exhaled. “Not at all! You had your hands full, and I of all people know what that’s like with those two.”

“Still, I’d like to hear about how it went?”

He nodded in the direction of their back porch just out the kitchen door. It had a bench swing just under Braxton’s open window, so they could hear if he woke up. The sun was low in the sky, causing the autumn leaves to gleam golden and red. It so beautiful the Doctor and Rose couldn’t help but stare at the trees as they settled in on the swing. He leaned against one of the armrests with her back against his chest. His arms encircled her, and she entwined hers arms around his. Together like this, they felt completely at peace.

“I found the missing sequence in the coding,” he began after a moment of simply enjoying each other’s embrace. “The machine is already up and running, processing the new arrivals’ photos as we speak.”

“So we can give them IDs now, all the shapeshifters?”

“Yup. One more class of refugees the Earth can take in from other worlds.” He kissed her temple. “They can have a home here and work legally and provide for their families.”

She turned her head so she could nuzzle into his neck. “I’m so proud of you. I don’t tell you that enough.”

“I’m proud of you too. You amaze me. Every day. Whether we’re fighting the bad guys or helping aliens find a home here or taking care of our kids.”

She sighed, supposing it was time to confess her insecurity, even if it was probably just monthly hormones.

“Sometimes I…”

“What is it, love?”

“I wonder if I’m doing any of it right. There’s all this talk about whether we mums can do it all, you know: work, be a good parent, travel, whatever. I see other mums or other agents or people we meet in our travels and it just seems like I can never get it right or be enough.”

“Ohhh, my Rose,” he reassured gently though it broke his heart to hear it, “you are doing every bit of that marvelously. And I would be lying if I said I didn’t have the same doubts about myself. You know how hard it was for me to accept I could be a good dad at first.”

“Yeah, but that was ages ago.”

“Still, I doubt myself, if I’m good enough for you, for our kids. I know there’s more I could be doing at work too, with my big brain and centuries of experience, but I need time here too. I want to be there for things like Piper’s footie game today and putting Brax down for his nap, but I also want to help others find a home here for their families. It’s…”

“Complicated,” she finished for him. “I feel that too. Every time I see a kid we’ve saved run back to their parents, I miss our kids. And vice versa, every time I hear about one of our kids’ classmates whose planet we weren’t there to save, I feel guilty we were here safe with our family.”

“Yeah.” He sighed. “You know what though?”

“Hmm?”

“I’d say we’re doing alright.”

“Yeah?” She smiled.

“Definitely. And we’ll probably still be figuring this out even after the kids are grown and gone. We’ll be wondering how to balance it all with our grandchildren!”

“I dunno. Maybe we’ll have figured it out by then.” She watched an orange leaf fall right into her lap from the branch above them. She picked it up and handed it to him. “One thing I do know.”

“What’s that?”

“I’m so glad we get to do all of this: growing old together, having this life. I love it.”

“Worth it?”

“Always.”

“Stay with me?”  

“Forever.”  She twisted in his arms and kissed him, enjoying the brief moment of peace in the madness of their one life together.


End file.
